Interstate-74 overhaul leads to decline in accidents

Sunday

Apr 28, 2013 at 12:01 AMApr 28, 2013 at 3:44 PM

When the half-billion-dollar Interstate 74 reconstruction through the heart of Peoria was announced and throughout the years of construction that ensued, one word summed up the goal of the overhaul: safety.

Gone would be the tight turns just off the interstate and the short on ramps that at times forced drivers to blindly merge into highway traffic. And since those features have disappeared, gone, too, are nearly half the accidents.

Matt Buedel

When the half-billion-dollar Interstate 74 reconstruction through the heart of Peoria was announced and throughout the years of construction that ensued, one word summed up the goal of the overhaul: safety.

Gone would be the tight turns just off the interstate and the short on ramps that at times forced drivers to blindly merge into highway traffic. And since those features have disappeared, gone, too, are nearly half the accidents.

In the three years leading up to the beginning of construction on the 11-mile stretch of interstate through the heart of the metro area, 819 crashes with three deaths were recorded, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation.

For the three most recently available years of crash data along the same stretch of road, there were 451 wrecks with one fatality — a 45-percent decline in accidents overall.

The ramps that proved to be most problematic in terms of accidents on the old interstate were born of design decisions made to adapt a previously existing roadway to the national interstate system.

The Murray Baker Bridge and portions of what would become I-74 had already been built and were integrated into the interstate, leaving Downtown ramps that were well short of current design requirements by the time the overhaul was being planned.

“They were standard at the time (they were built), but not up to interstate standards,” Therkildsen said.

The greatest challenge for engineers redesigning the roadway was to provide motorists with adequate stretches of pavement to slow down after exiting the interstate and get up to speed before entering traffic traveling at highway speed.

Those considerations, along with more lanes to ease traffic congestion, were key to improving safety on the road.

“Obviously, the biggest one was the elimination of tight ramps,” Therkildsen said.

The reconstruction of the interstate also allowed for the installation of a traffic monitoring system for highway personnel and law enforcement to more quickly react to crashes and route traffic away from accident scenes.

The first components of what would become known as the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) were installed in the I-74 corridor as part of the construction project. A system of 24 wireless cameras were put in place to monitor traffic as roadwork progressed.

“I-74 really gave us the opportunity to put it in,” said IDOT traffic engineer Randy Laninga. “It was very important for the ITS to be in as soon as possible.”

Those cameras were made permanent with the installation of fiber optic cable as the project was completed. Highway personnel and law enforcement in the area have used the system’s video feeds for bird’s-eye views of accidents as soon as they are reported and to divert traffic from the area with message boards on the eastern and western boundaries of the I-74 overhaul.

The system has grown from those original 24 cameras to 80 throughout the region. Video feeds originally were available to Peoria County and East Peoria dispatchers but have been built out to connect to other agencies in Woodford and Tazewell counties.

With the construction at the interchange between I-74 and Interstate 155 now underway, an additional 10 cameras will be added to the local ITS infrastructure.

Public access to the system also has been made available with still images from the video cameras updated online every few minutes at www.gettingaroundpeoria.com. That system is the first of its kind in Illinois outside major metropolitan areas in Chicago and St. Louis.

“Our system is something that the rest of the state is looking at and wanting to emulate,” Laninga said. “And the I-74 project is the only reason we have it.”

Matt Buedel can be reached at 686-3154 or mbuedel@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @JournoBuedel.

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